3,700 Year Old Vintage Wine Produced by the Caanites

When people talk of vintage wines they don’t often discuss vintage wine in the range of 3,700 years old. Of course the really good stuff is not available for everyone. Within an archeological dig of a Canaanite palace in Israel the expensive wine was kept separate from that discounted stuff for others. The ceramic jars appear to be left for special occasions. They did not find any wine review lists to go with them so researchers will need to investigate how sophisticated the wine making process was. 

What they did find was that it was likely mixed up with honey, mint, cedar, juniper berries and cinnamon bark. They also found psychotropic properties within the wine.  The psychotropic properties made the drinkers hallucinate. It was often used for parties and religious purposes to gain visionary abilities. 

 The 40 jars would hold about 13 gallons a piece and seemed to be in smaller quantities than that found else ware.  No other details have been presented on the wine making process other than it is possible this was the start of a sophisticated operation that spread to other Middle East countries. 

The excavation was run by Dr. Eric Cline a chair at the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civiliations at George Washing University, Assaf Yasure-Landau, chair of the Department of Maritime Civilizaiton at the University of Haifa, and Andrew Koh, an assistant professor of classical studies at Brandeis University. Each brought a unique skill to the dig site and used their expertise to understand what they were discovering. 

The city is called Tel Kabri which is an ancient city that dates back to 1,500 BC in the Canaanite areas. Most of the Canaanite people live in Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Palestine.  They have existed in the region from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age and were seen as merchants. It is possible that ancient Egyptians got their wine from them. They were loosely affiliated in walled cities but climate changes and incursion seems to have caused their fall. 

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Throwing Ourselves Two Million Years into Human Advancement

Divisions of Labor were born with the human ability to throw a projectile.  Research has taught us that as people learned the ability to throw sticks, stones, rocks, and weapons the social nature of life began to change. Where humans were limited in their food supply, the ability to throw objects created more efficient hunting that led to increased calorie intake. Researchers recently published the interesting findings on human development in the journal Nature.

The shoulder has developed in such as way to maintain elastic energy so that when it is released it can produce the fastest motion possible. Other species cannot do this. Where chimpanzees can throw 20 mph the human can often achieve up to 100 mph. This makes the projectiles much faster than the natural speed in the environment. This faster speed creates higher levels of food and nutrition obtainment which fosters population growth. 

The division of labor occurred because food was a commodity that could be bartered and traded. As hunters brought back more food people obtained more nutrition and had larger families, became bigger in size, and were able to focus on other activities. Where animals constantly seek food for survival humans developed the ability to collaborate and collectively share food for the betterment of all. 

Throwing also encouraged the ability to hunt from a distance creating greater spatial awareness that could have led to other projectile concepts that fostered the ideas that led to modern space flight. The more efficient humans became the freer they were to pursue other life activities. Do you think you would have the time to read this article if you were out foraging for dinner? 

The researchers looked through archeological evidence to see when humans actually developed this ability. The problem is that there is a gap somewhere in the transitional development. This means that it may also be a learned function of using the body in a new way. They cannot say with high levels of surety how the skill came into being other than it seemed to show up around 2 million years ago. Without the ability to master projectiles and the resources it harnessed we cannot be sure we would be as developed as we have. 

The Journal Article in Nature

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NPR

Boston Globe

The Discovery of the Chactun Mayan City

A major Mayan city by the name of Chactun was discovered in Yacatan Mexico. Filled with Mayan architecture and artifacts the cities complex exists on 54 acres. Through thick vegetation and 10 days of chopping at jungle foliage the researchers finally made their way to the large city that contained somewhere around 40,000 people during the Late Mayan Classical Period (600AD to 900AD).

Using aerial photos and then following up on the ancient paths used by loggers and rubber makers the scientists were able to make their way into the jungle. The area was previously unmapped and generally untouched by human hands except for a few small time workers in the area. There was no evidence from other Mayan artifacts that this large city existed.

As of present, the writings and all of the structures have not been identified.  However, the researchers did find alters, temples, ball courts, palaces, and storage facilities. According to Sprajc, “We realized, with big surprise, that the site was even larger than we had expected. What impressed us most were the volumes of the buildings — they are not extremely high, but very massive,”(Discovery, 2013).

It is believed that some later people reused the site and didn’t understand what the symbols really meant. They did understand that the monuments were very important and spiritual. They found ceramics and other offerings indicating that the newer people were trying to give respect to the religious figures. This is one of the first times discoverers have seen the recycling of worship.

The Mayan maintained a rich culture and one of the most developed in the world at the time. Their cultural high existed around 850 A.D. In Europe around this time Germanic peoples caused the fall of the Western Roman Empire and began to colonize England. If Mayan culture was allowed to grow it may have been a unique powerhouse of the region. They developed architecture, art, fully developed writing, astronomy, mathematics, calendars, and administrative developments. They became an urban society supported by an extensive agricultural system. 

Around 900 C.E. the strength of the Mayan culture collapsed. Scientists are unsure as to why this may have happened. Some argue that a drop in water levels led to intense inter-conflict, disease, and eventual collapse of their system. Others argued that they were invaded from a powerful outside source.

The later explanation is least likely as they were by far the dominant civilization from the area. It is also possible that a peasant revolt ended the culture but this again is a weak explanation as it wouldn’t have decimated its population. Regardless, there is much we can learn from Mayan economics and history.  I have always had an interest in developing economic theories as derived from the Mayan system.

Science

Discovery

International Business Times